Sketch 2-1, added some random blur effect.

Sketch 2-2, changed colors a bit, still using the follow mouse effect.

Sketch 2-3, automated the movement and size of the circles still with the blur filter.

So I open up processing to see how technical I am or maybe exercise and learn to be more technical and creative at the same time. And upon booting up, I found an old sketch that I did, I guess at another point when I felt the need to escape or was feeling frustrated. The short sketch involved dots with random sizes and hue. As I move the mouse around, the dots “paint on the canvas.” Look:

It’s flattering to see people wearing your design. Even though it was a gift, I saw that the people genuinely liked the shirts that we handed out to them. Although I was just limited by 3 colors, I had the freedom of designing what the shirt would look like. I made the logo of Novare act like a sports brand and did my liberties with the circles and lines.

As TechTote was recently featured in Manila Times,  I quickly came up with a one page site that show the current lists of TechTote products.  TechTote produces stylish laptop bags for women and can be found in all Powerbooks stores.  We used to put the brand TechTote under the original line of Blauorange. But TechTote now stands on it own and we thought of abandoning the old brand since we stopped producing the blauorange cloth bags for over almost a year.  Now we see that the original domain name has been taken by another, just squatters hoping to get a buyer for the domain.

My concept was simple but I thought was solid: There were 2 landmark spots and I thought that they should work to support one another.  My concept was to make icons out of the Philippine flag.  The result was the 3 stars of the flag will be on the smaller landmark, while the Sun will occupy the bigger one.  I had submitted an elaborate essay on the materials, the idea, even the interaction of the landmark.Time passed and the promised date to announce the finalists have passed.  I thought, I didn’t get in the top 10 which is why they didn’t contact me.  Below is the model I submitted.  I used SketchUp to draw the model.
 

A month after the deadline, I got an email saying I was part of the top 10, but only on the bigger landmark part.  I guess this was the start of the breaking of my concept.  Alone, one landmark might look weak.  Still, I was happy to get in the top 10.  Now all I had to do was to come up with a scale model in 2 weeks! It was an exciting time, I worked with my uncle who is also an architect, he referred my to a scale model maker.  They said it would be hard to do, but it is possible.  Below was the result:

I was very happy with it.  I could already see its 8 storey granduer glowing from a distance as people drive to the airport.  I told myself, this is what great artists, designers, architects do.  This will immortalize my name.  I shall build my design empire with this iconic work.  I shall be the next great national artist.I was sure that I would win.  Family, friends and colleagues were also giving me confidence that I would.  But alas, I did not. Today, an awarding ceremony will be held in the airport.  I was invited, but I won’t attend, not because I am bitter but because I have to go back to little bites of work.   So it goes, I lose but live to fight another day.  I am still looking for that day… someday.

That was a mouthful.. and so is what it represents.  One of the difficulties I encountered working with Novare is trying to explain what Novare does in one sentence, or in this case, one glance.  The graph below will never see the light of day, but I still think it is worth showing.  The graph represents what Novare Technologies do, or rather what services they offer to their customers and partners.

Here is the circle in more detail.  Why a circle? I think it is appropriate since it also gives some reference to the Novare logo.  The innermost circle represents the customers of Novare.  The circles outside represent the six services of Novare, differentiated by a color.  There are overlapping circles since some of the services cover more than one customer.  For example, the yellow colored ring which says “OSS/BSS Outsourcing Solutions” can be offered to all the customer segments, where as the grey ring, “NWARE” can only be offered to “consumers & enterprises.”

To make it clearer, I added an additional explanation to the right.  This explicitly says what Novare offers to which customer segment.  I enjoyed working in this abstract / conceptual level.  I thought that it was successful in illustrating the point.  But others didn’t agree, so Novare went with another one, which I shall post someday.  So do you think it is difficult to understand?

The redesign is more of a ‘nip/tuck’ really and this was probably the first redesign I’ve done with so much self-restrain. The reason was I knew that even the slightest change would face a lot of resistance. The original logo was done in France and they were represented during the town hall. True enough, I was informed before the presentation that the draft I had submitted was being questioned. Luckily I had the opportunity to present to everyone myself and show them the logic behind the redesign.

Above are the old and new logos superimposed with one another. The most obvious change was the move and resize of the smile. The previous smile was unnecessarily taking up a lot of vertical space and I explained that it looked more like a grin than a smile. Another thing I did was to make the typeface slightly narrower, thus also reducing the horizontal clutter. I made the letter “V” capital and smoothen the edges. And last but not the least, I changed the color of the dots from orange to blue. I thought that it was very distracting to have them like that. The result is what I believe to be a more solid and streamlined identity done without loosing its 15 year brand equity.

This was our first community website and the design was also one of our most different. The colors and illustrations are fun and very appropriate to the site. Technically it was also the most challenging. Handling a CMS with forums and calendar functionality was not an easy task but I am proud of how it turned out. Let’s hope the families will follow.